For example, a kite. I just don’t understand how the higher pressure at the top pushes the plane forward and how it stays in the air and stuff. If anyone could explain this to me would be great!
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This one is trickier than it seems.
The full answer? We are not entirely sure.
Here is what we do know.
When air travels over the front of the wing, some of it is deflected under and some over. Some also clings to the wing, creating a boundary between the wing and the rest of the air.
The air traveling over the wing is forced into a path that generates centripetal force, pulling the air away from the wing. This is often because of the curved surface of the wing, but can also be caused by the angle of attack even on a flat wing.
This reduces the pressure on the upper surface of the wing.
The air deflected under the wing, however, travels in much the same path as it would if there were no wing. As a result, its effects on the wing are less than the effects on the upper surface.
There are also other, less well-understood effects coming from other parts of the wing, such as vortices at the tips of the wing. We understand these less well.
Here is the really tricky part, though. Scientists agree that the air going over the upper surface creates a reduced pressure on the wing causing lift. However, they are not certain what translates this reduced pressure into lift. One theory says that this is caused somehow by the interaction between the lower pressure, the boundary, and the wing itself. Another theory is that a downdraft is created pushing the wing up.
In the end, while we would really like to know exactly what is going wrong, what actually allows us to fly is that a lot of engineers kept trying different things until we found one that worked and then worked out the math so that we could generally know what will happen to the wing.
The why, however…
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